While the NBA Awards won’t be handed out until late July, the NBA has now revealed the All-Rookie, All-Defensive, and All-NBA teams.
Thursday, the league announced the 15 players that received All-NBA honors, and while the usual suspects populated most of the teams, there were some pretty major surprises regarding placement of players. The biggest surprise, although not one that is undeserved, came on the first-team where Blazers guard Damian Lillard earned a spot next to LeBron James, Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Anthony Davis.
Harden and LeBron were unanimous first-team selections, while Davis was a first team selection on all but four ballots. Lillard edged Durant for the fourth most points in the voting to make his first ever first-team, and third All-NBA nod overall. Elsewhere, Joel Embiid earned his first All-NBA selection as a member of the second-team, as did Victor Oladipo and Karl-Anthony Towns with third-team selections.
You can see the full teams, as well as the voting breakdown below:
First-Team All-NBA
LeBron James (500 points)
James Harden (500 points)
Anthony Davis (492 points)
Damian Lillard (432 points)
Kevin Durant (426 points)
Second-Team All-NBA
Giannis Antetokounmpo (354 points)
Russell Westbrook (322 points)
Joel Embiid (294 points)
LaMarcus Aldridge (236 points)
DeMar DeRozan (165 points)
Third-Team All-NBA
Steph Curry (164 points)
Victor Oladipo (105 points)
Karl-Anthony Towns (99 points)
Jimmy Butler (88 points)
Paul George (54 points)
Chris Paul was tied with Paul George with 54 points, but being a guard he was well behind Victor Oladipo for a third-team nod. Rudy Gobert (51 points), Kyrie Irving (42 points), Ben Simmons (36 points), and Nikola Jokic (28 points) were the next highest vote-getters.
Klay Thompson missing out on All-NBA honors with just two points in voting makes him ineligible for a supermax extension this summer, and will need to make an All-NBA squad next year in order to be eligible for it when he hits free agency in 2019.
For LeBron James, its his 12th all-time selection to the first-team All-NBA which is now the most ever, breaking a tie he held previously with Karl Malone and Kobe Bryant.
The most egregiously bad votes handed out on this year’s ballot were to Trevor Ariza and, unbelievably, Dwight Howard — also, Kristaps Porzingis got one despite appearing in just 48 games, but at least he was really good in those 48 games.
